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Verizon's iPhone Gamble

How will Verizon’s network stand up under iPhone usage?

January 11, 2011

Apple’s iPhone has already redefined the computing and phone industries, and forced abrupt changes in strategy from companies like Google and Microsoft. Now it will become available on the Verizon network, not just AT&T’s, setting up a mass experiment that has the tech world at the edge of its seat.

The iPhone will be available to preorder from Verizon in early February. The big question is: will users of it suffer the dropped calls and slow data rates experienced by AT&T iPhone users in places densely populated with early adopters, such as San Francisco and New York.

The one feature of Verizon’s iPhone (absent from that offered by AT&T) suggest’s the company is very confident. A Verizon iPhone can become a wireless hotspot that up to five laptops or other devices connect to for internet data. That feature could place considerable a lot of load on the network, for example if people connect up iPads and laptops to stream music and watch high quality video.

Ultimately, though, the “ViPhone” may not have much time left as the newest Apple phone on the block. In a bluntly-titled post – Don’t Buy the Verizon iPhone 4 – Gizmodo cites Apple’s habit of announcing an improved iPhone every summer since 2007. Anyone signing up for a Verizon iPhone in February may find their handset outdated just a few months into their 2 year contract.

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I’m MIT Technology Review’s San Francisco bureau chief and enjoy a diverse diet of algorithms, Internet, and human-computer interaction with chips on the side. I lead our coverage of new ideas from Silicon Valley, whether they spring from tech… More giants, new startups, or academic labs.

My journey to the West Coast started in a small English market town and took in the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, and five years writing and editing technology news coverage at New Scientist magazine.

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